On our first day, Kaylyn and I did exactly what we weren't supposed to do: we took a nap. We took a really really long nap. The next day, we did the same thing. At about 5 or 6 at night, we crawled out of our caves after realizing that we hadn't eaten in two days. We got a Dominoes pizza, cleared ourselves a place in our mess of a living room (it was a mess when we moved in, so we've mostly steered clear of it), and watched The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I obviously dove head-first into a jet setting, world traveling lifestyle!
Our first real outing was to Asda (aka the UK's Walmart). Kaylyn and I had been to the grocery stores near our flat, and they were very small. Apparently, there are local versions of the grocery stores, which are small and sell mostly food. Then, there is the large version, which is more like a Walmart. As far as I can tell, Asda only comes in the large Walmart-like version, so Kaylyn and I decided to go there. We took a double-decker bus (our first time riding one in the UK!), and it only took about 10 minutes to get to Asda. Kaylyn and I tried to get a shopping cart, but we didn't realize that it cost £1 to unlock one. We ended up just buying what we could carry.
The rows of groceries at Asda are really close to the checkout tills, so the whole store seemed really bustling and overwhelming, but we eventually made it out! After Asda, we walked next door to Argos to look at pay as you go phones. We didn't end up buying phones at Argos (pronounced "Argawss" and not "Argoes" like I originally thought), but let me just take a minute to say that Argos is the coolest store ever. You walk in and find the item you want in a paper or electronic catalog. Then, you write the number of the item on a checkout slip and take the slip to the checkout till. After you pay, you sit down and wait for your number to be called. The employees get the item from the store room and then call your number. When they call your number, you go to the collection desk, pick up your item, and leave. It's fantastic! There's no running around or asking employees which aisle something is on! But, Argos was the end of our good luck for that afternoon, because the rest of the night was terribly stressful.
Kaylyn and I on the double decker before the night went terribly wrong.
This is a little story I would like to title "Dang it, Flixton." When Kaylyn and I were leaving Asda and Argos, we decided to get on the same bus we had taken to get to Asda and Argos. We figured that it would take a while, but we knew that the bus would run in a complete circle and we would eventually end up back at our flat. Plus, we weren't exactly sure where the bus stop was for the bus that would've gone straight back to our flat. So, instead of getting on the bus headed back toward our flat, we got on the bus heading away from our flat. This mistake took us at least an hour and a half.
At first, Kaylyn and I were completely excited, because we were sitting on the top floor of the bus. It got dark outside during the course of our ride, and number of passengers dwindled. Then the lights on the inside of the bus went out. They flicked back on before we could get too concerned, but then we heard the driver yell "Last Stop." I'm sorry, what? This bus did not go full circle, and it was not late enough for the buses to stop running. Kaylyn and I shot a questioning look at each other and got up to head down the stairs. There was only one other person on the bus, a guy in his early twenties. He yelled down the stairs that there were still three more people on the top floor. Seeing our probably terrified faces, he said "I think this is the last stop, do you know where you are?" No. The answer to that question was no, absolutely not. But, not wanting to end up the damsel in distress in a Liam Neeson movie, I was not about to tell that to this random man. So instead, I just said, "Umm, we're going to go talk to the driver," and ran downstairs. Well according to the driver, this was his last stop, and we had to get off. The bus hadn't even stopped at an actual bus stop with a bench, it stopped at a sign with a picture of a bus on it. Oh, the best part of this story is that Kaylyn and I had no cell phones and, therefore, no way to call a cab or search GoogleMaps for a way home. There were no businesses around us, we were surrounded by a neighborhood on one side and what I think was a lake/pond on the other. It was completely dark outside, and all the houses looked exactly the same. Kaylyn and I froze.
With the bus gone, the young guy again asked us if we knew where we were. Again, we were not about to tell him that we were completely lost. I'm not exactly sure if we answered him, or if we just stared at him with terror in our eyes, but he eventually told us that if we walked down a street and took a right, there would be an actual bus stop with a bench and a map. We could wait there for the next bus. Not having anything else to go on, Kaylyn and I set off in the direction that the young guy had pointed out. We walked for about five minutes in absolute darkness, but we finally saw the bus stop, and there was a bus parked at it! The driver had gotten out, and we asked him if his bus would take us back near the universities. It wouldn't, but the driver said that the next bus would. We prepared ourselves to stand outside and wait in the cold, when the bus driver said "I'm not scheduled to leave for another 8 minutes. Do you two want to wait on the bus instead of out in the cold?"
That bus driver was about the only reason that I didn't absolutely freak out. He explained to us that buses make everyone get off when it needs gas, or when it is the end of a driver's shift. Riders have to wait at the bus stop for the next bus to come along. Then he told us that Manchester was going through a really mild winter, because usually it would be snowing by now. But my favorite part was when he told us that he doesn't really know which bus passes he is supposed to take, so when someone gets on the bus and shows him a ticket or a pass, he just lets them get on. According to the driver, "I get paid whether the bus is full or not."
Once the driver left, we only had to wait about five minutes for the next bus to pull up. We got on, making sure to check that this bus would take us back to the universities, and from there it was about 45 minutes to get to our flat. It turns out, Kaylyn and I had gotten dropped off in Flixton, prompting us to now say "Dang it, Flixton" every time we see the name Flixton on a sign or a bus.
On this map, A is Asda, and B is Flixton.
Hopefully I'll get better at this public transportation thing.
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